Today is my father's 69th birthday. He was awakened at 5AM this morning by a policeman at the front door ringing the doorbell. It seems the policeman had been walking by when he found a man in the front seat of my dad's car trying to hotwire it. The policeman pursued, but the suspect got away. (occasionaly, police do turn up when you need them.) The ignition was sufficiently damaged that the car needed to be towed to the repair shop. It seems to me that Seattle didn't used to be like that. Or maybe I was just naive when I lived there.

Anyway, here's a fine picture of my father, John Cramer, circa 1940, taken at the Herman Park Zoo in Houston, Texas.

On another family note, Geoff Hartwell, my stepson, wants me to be sure to tell everyone that he is on page 94 of the December issue of Guitar Player magazine:

There is something incredibly satisfying about a guitar lick that gallops up the strings and tags every sweet note in its path.